Nardi's aim: Art with a point
The Toronto Star
March 12, 2007
Joe Fiorito
The actor Tony Nardi was taking coffee at Centro on a recent
afternoon. Centro, on St. Clair West, is a tavola calda,
a hot table, a place where you can get a plate of pasta, and
many other fine and reasonably priced things to eat; also, a
cup of good espresso.
Nardi was at ease. He lives nearby and Centro is his local.
The room was warm with the smell of red sauce. He motioned to
a chair. I sat. He said, "The people here are from near
my home, Cosenza. It's nice to be able to come here and speak
my dialect."
Nardi came to Toronto from Cosenza by way of Montreal. I am
familiar with the way they speak here and in the latter place.
How do they speak in Cosenza?
The actor became two men in conversation at a bus stop.
"Where does this bus go?"
"Where it goes."
"When does it leave?"
"When it leaves."
Those few lines bore the freight of subtle gesture and the weight
of a certain philosophy and I have been, if not in Cosenza,
then near enough to feel as if I'd know the place. The last
time we spoke, Nardi was reading from Two Letters, his one-man
argument against the use of stereotype as a stand-in for the
truth; or, if you prefer, from his two-part argument in favour
of honesty in art.
Honesty?
It is the actor's dialect.
Alas, the world of the theatre is a small one where, on bad
days, there is little room for truth or honesty. Nardi, in a
blistering performance, made certain critics, and many actors,
uncomfortable or afraid. I saw what he did. He was masterful.
He ranted, he dared, he wept, he laughed, he improvised. At
times, he looked to me like a man walking barefoot to his lover
over broken glass. Of course, he had trouble getting reviewed.
An irony: more ink was spilled on the lack of reviews than was
spilled on actual reviews. The world – and the world of
the theatre – is upside down.
Oh, fie.
I am drawn to those who risk. I was curious to know what it
felt like during the run, when this town ought to have been
filled with thesis and antithesis, call and response, attack
and defence; there should have been fist fights.
He said, "I'd bump into colleagues. They'd say, `Hi, Tony,
what's new?' They knew what was new."
There.
The Cosenza dialect.
He said, "I was surprised. People who should have been
engaged stayed away."
I suppose you can lead a horse to water, just as you can lead
a horticulture, but you cannot compel the drinking or the thinking,
and I do not mean to be unfair to nags nor to horticulturalists
nor to anyone else.
Oh, yes, I do.
The lunch crowd had mostly gone from Centro by this time, and
the women who work in the kitchen drifted into the restaurant
and they chatted idly over cups of espresso before heading home
to feed their families.
Tony and I began to talk about Toronto.
I may have said that this city is too careful at times. Not
exactly timid, but reserved; not quite indifferent, but diffident.
And that this may be a useful social strategy in a town of
so many different cultures.
Nardi, who cannot go for a minute without making a sharply observant
point, said, "This city is the third largest English-speaking
theatre centre, after London and New York. How can that be?
What does multicultural mean?"
Allow me the risk of rephrasing: Where is the Nigerian Princess
of Wales Theatre, and who is the Chinese Nardi?
We talked again of Cosenza. The actor grew up in a house with
no running water.
His best toy was a hoop that he rolled with a stick, the way
boys have done since the invention of the wheel.
He said, "When I was growing up, people would knock on
the door. You'd answer and someone would sing or play the pipes
or do a skit, there on your doorstep, and you'd give them a
loaf of bread."
That is art as a part of daily life. We ought to have that here.
An analogy: He and I know of living rooms in which the furniture
is covered in plastic. The big plays are like that: covered
in plastic. No one goes into those rooms.
I have waited for Godot. I will not wait any longer.
Nardi also talked about art as an instrument of social policy.
"Forget doing a play about feeding kids. Let's feed the
kids, then do a play."
How sensible.
Does art matter? Nardi is married and has a young son, but he
cashed in his RRSPs to stage Two Letters.
Do the "Letters" matter? Nardi is taking another risk.
He is performing them again at the Artcore Gallery in March
and
April; go to www.twoletters.ca for more information.
Can he afford to do this again? He can't afford not to do it
again.
Dare you go?
I dare you to go.
jfiorito@thestar.ca
